The present invention relates to a beverage supply device mounting a hot-water tank storing hot water heated by a built-in heater to provide a prepared (extracted) beverage using the hot water stored in the hot-water tank as needed.
In a cup-type automatic vending machine with a type mixing a material inside a cup, which is well-known as the beverage supply device mounting the hot-water tank storing the hot water heated by the built-in heater to provide the prepared beverage using the hot water stored in the hot-water tank as needed, a plurality of canisters housing powdery raw materials such as instant coffee, sugar, cream, and the like is mounted inside a main member of the automatic vending machine, and a fixed amount of powdery raw materials is supplied to a cup from a corresponding canister according to a sales order of a selected beverage, and after the hot water supplied from the hot-water tank is added and stirred, the aforementioned cup is carried to a sales port for sale. In the aforementioned cup-type automatic vending machine serving for a sale of regular coffee, there is provided a coffee brewer extracting a regular coffee beverage by the hot water supplied from the hot-water tank to ground beans crushed by a mill after coffee beans supplied from a coffee bean canister housing roasted coffee beans are crushed by the mill to the ground beans with a specified particle size. This type of cup-type automatic vending machine is relatively tall, so that generally, the hot-water tank is disposed in an upper region of the main member of the automatic vending machine so that the hot water supplied from the hot-water tank falls by gravity. Then, the hot water stored in the hot-water tank is supplied to the cup through a hot-water delivery piping by controlling opening and closing of a hot-water valve which is a valve member discharging the hot water stored in the hot-water tank. In that case, a supply quantity (supply quantity per one sale) of the hot water is determined by a time when the hot-water valve opens, and the hot-water delivery piping connected to the hot-water valve is arranged in an up-and-down direction, and when the hot-water valve is closed, all of the hot water inside the hot-water delivery piping falls by gravity, so that the hot water never remains inside the hot-water delivery piping. Therefore, there are no possibilities such that as in the case wherein the hot water remains inside the hot-water delivery piping, the hot water with a lowered temperature is supplied at the time of the next sale, or if there is a long time until the next sale, the hot water remaining inside the hot-water delivery piping cools to generate bacteria.
With respect to such a tall cup-type automatic vending machine, there is also known a desktop-type beverage supply device having a small height and small size. The small-size beverage supply device is also provided with a raw-material supply unit including canisters housing raw materials; a beverage extraction unit spouting a content of the raw material by mixing the raw material supplied from the raw-material supply unit and the hot water, or soaking the raw material in the hot water to prepare a beverage; a hot-water tank storing the hot water heated by a built-in heater; and the like. Since this kind of small-sized beverage supply device has the small height, it is difficult to dispose the hot-water tank above the beverage extraction unit so as to be formed such that the raw-material supply unit and the beverage extraction unit are disposed close to a front side of a box-shaped cabinet, and the hot-water tank is arranged close to a rear side of an exterior case. In that case, there is arranged a pump for pumping up the hot water stored in the hot-water tank to send to the beverage extraction unit below the hot-water tank, and the hot water stored in the hot-water tank is pumped upward by the aforementioned pump (for example, see Patent Document 1).
The beverage supply device disclosed in the Patent Document 1 is formed such that the hot-water delivery piping for guiding the hot water pumped up by the pump arranged below the hot-water tank to the beverage extraction unit is laid in such a way as to pass outside the hot-water tank, and the hot-water valve composed of the valve member is provided in a middle of the hot-water delivery piping, and whenever a beverage is selected by a beverage selection device, the pump and the hot-water valve are controlled to deliver the hot water stored in the hot-water tank to the beverage extraction unit.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-63595
The aforementioned invention disclosed in the Patent Document 1 excels in that the beverage supply device can be made small and compact by disposing the hot-water tank at a rear side of the raw-material supply unit and the beverage extraction unit.
However, the beverage supply device disclosed in the Patent Document 1 is formed such that the hot-water delivery piping for guiding the hot water pumped up by the pump arranged below the hot-water tank to the beverage extraction unit is piped in such a way as to pass outside the hot-water tank, and the hot-water valve composed of an electromagnetic valve is provided in the middle of the hot-water delivery piping, and whenever the beverage is selected by the beverage selection device, the pump and the hot-water valve are controlled to deliver the hot water stored in the hot-water tank to the beverage extraction unit.
Accordingly, during a stand-by time when waiting for a selection of the beverage by the beverage selection device, the hot water remains in the hot-water delivery piping between the pump and the hot-water valve, and next, in a case wherein the beverage is selected, the hot water remaining in the hot-water delivery piping is delivered to the beverage extraction unit. The aforementioned hot-water delivery piping is placed in an ordinary temperature atmosphere, and the temperature of the hot water remaining in the hot-water delivery piping falls as time proceeds, so that as the stand-by time becomes longer, the hot water which became cold is likely to be delivered to the beverage extraction unit so as to have a problem that there is a possibility that when the hot water remaining inside the hot-water delivery piping is cooled, the bacteria is likely to be generated.
In order to solve the aforementioned problem, there can be considered to adopt a technology for a power-operated electric pot and the like, i.e. the hot-water delivery piping is made wherein after the hot-water delivery piping is made of glass with a silver vapor deposition in order to suppress a heat release, the hot-water delivery piping is tightly attached to an outer wall of a metal hot-water tank. However, even in a case wherein the hot-water delivery piping is made of a special-purpose article, a decline of the temperature of the hot water remaining in the hot-water delivery piping is inevitable so as to have a problem to be improved in terms of cost-effectiveness.
The present invention is made in view of the aforementioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to solve the aforementioned problems, and to provide a beverage supply device which can suppress the decline of the temperature of the hot water remaining in the hot-water delivery piping for guiding the hot water pumped up by the pump to the beverage extraction unit without increasing a cost.
Further objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.